A sunburned boy sleeps
after a first picnic ballgame,
his room still purple evening lit,
his pink warm rest troubled.
Early, the whiffle flies past
into a dry, rock field corner.
A taller cousin,
dry-fingered, blue cut-offed,
leads the blistering boy
to the broken gate-frame.
In the baked stony rubble
lies a black s longishly stilled.
Ground tremble under these two
disturbs the snake that whispers
scales into crushed mortar foundation.
Sun knifes earth into dry cakes
and feet scuff dust into cracks
among haired crabgrass runners.
Sundrenched nightmares of day.
Our boy shivers
beneath thin striped cotton.
He was not the one
who stifled a scream, quivered
to a near-jump. Dreaming,
the boy faces the ratsnake.
They are eye to eye.
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